


THE. 



ORDINANCE OF 1787 



By WILLIAM F. POOLE. 



1892. 




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Pass L ' ^ O^- 
Book P %2. 



TH R 



ORDINANCE OF 1787. 



A REPLY. 



By WILLIAM F. POOLE, 



FROM "THE INLANDER" FOR JANUARY, 1892. 



PRIVATELY PRINTED. 

ANX AllJJOR, MICUIGAN. 
1892. 



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THE ORDINANCE OF 1787. 



IN The Inlander for November, Mr. Heary A. Chaney makes an earnest 
protest a:^aiast a wroasf committed, which he terms '* a Perversion of His- 
tory," ia robbing Nathaa Dane of the honor of the authorship of the Ordinance 
of 1787, and bestowing it upon another — Dr. Manasseh Cutler. The purpose 
ot" his paper wa>^ "to examine the process by which this literary depredation 
was committed, and to help restore to its owner the reputation of which he has 
been plundered." As I atn the person especially singled out as "depredator," 
although the names of seven of the most eminent historians in the country are 
given as my associates in pilfering — and the number might have been enlarged 
by many more names of similar quality — the editor has requested me to lile a 
brief in reply. 

Mr. Chaney is not quite sure in assigning to me the credit (or discredit as 
he regards it) of originating what he calls "the Poole theory," and "Mr. 
Poole's thesis," which has beguiled many such wary historians as Charles Ken- 
dall Adams, John Fiske, George Bancroft, Herbert B. Adams, Senator Hoar, 
Edward Everett Hale, Burke A. Hinsdale and others; and he rather suspects 
that I took it from Rev. Joseph F. Tuttle, then President of Wabash College. 
The fact is, as the dates I shall later give show, that President Tuttle took his 
heresy from me, and that I am the culprit and original " perverter of history;" 
if such an atrocious act has been committed. 

Mr. Chaney has made a very superficial study of the subject; and while he 
writes of " the Poole theory," in a tone almost of bitterness, he does not know 
what that theory is. Perhaps it cannot be stated in a briefer form than in 
the following extract from my address, at Washington, December 20, 1888, as 
President of the American Historical Association: 



— 4 — 

"The main facts concerning the Ordinance are now well established— that it 
was drafted as a part of the scheme duvised by the Ohio Company of Associates, 
formed in Massachusetts, for buyin^r and settling a lar^e tract of lanl iti Ohio on 
the Muskingum river; and that it was enacted by th^^ unanimou-i vote of ('ontfrt^ss 
in furtherance of that scheme. As Dr. Manasseh Cutler was the director of the 
company, who, with a sagacity and ability unsurpassed, ctnducted this Imsiness 
before Congress, and made the land purchase, the main credit of the enactment of 
the Ordinance and its beneficial results have been generally awarded to him. lie 
was entitled to grea*". praise; but to his associate directors. Gener ds Iliifus Putnam 
and Samuel Ilolden Parsons, and to prominent members of Congress— a majority of 
them Southern members — a large share of the honor is due. The authorship of 
Ordinance has been earnestly discussed by some recent writers, and they have the 
attempted to fix it upon some individual. No one 1 thinl<,in the prt sent state of 
the investigation, can be regarded as its author. It came from a committee, and 
what occurred in the sessions of that committee is not known. The scribe of the com- 
mittee was iVathan Dine; anil if the manuscript of the fin il draft, which is now lost, 
could be found, it would probably appe;ir in his hand writing." 

I have never made the statement, for I have no evidence to sustain it,^ 
that Dr. Cutler was the author of the Ordinance; and hence Mr. Chaney's 
assertion that I have bestowed the honor of the authorship upon Dr. Cutler has 
no foundation. I said in my paper in the North American Review for April, 
1876: " What Dr. Cutler, Mr. Dane, Colonel Carrington, or any other mem- 
"ber of the committee contributed to the Ordinance, the public records are 
" silent concerning. Mr. Dane doubtless wrote the draft, and performed the 
"clerical duties of the committee," (p. 255). And again, " That Mr. Dane was 
'* the member of the committee who wrote the draft of the Ordinance which was 
"submitted to and passed by Congress, there can be no question. A clerk of 
" the committee, under instructions, might have performed this duty. Whether 
"he was the author of the instrument in the higher sense of furnishing its 
"fundamental ideas, the occasion, the personal influence, and the strategy 
" which were needed to carry the measure through, and what services were 
"rendered by other persons, are legitimate subjects for historical investiga- 
tion" (p. 236). The privately printed edition of the paper is entitled, 
"The Ordinance of 1787, and Dr. Manasseh Cutler as an Agent in its 
Formation." 



— 5 — 

Mr. Chaney, in making an exparfe plea for the claim that Mr. Dane was 
the author of the Ordinance, has ignored all the facts in the record which show 
the improbability of such a conclusion. This practice is legitimate in a lawyer's 
pleadings at the bar; but it is not usual in the treatment of historical ques- 
tions where a judicial quality of mind is expected. He regards the statement 
of Mr. Dane that he wrote the ordinance as conclusive. That Mr. Dane was 
the writer of the ordinance has never been questioned by me; but on the other 
hand, I first brought iniq the discussion the letter of Mr. Dane to Rufus King 
of July 16, 1787, in which he states that he drew the ordinance, and which Mr. 
Chaney quotes with an air of triumph. I referred him also to four other simi- 
lar statements of Mr. Dane made from thirty- six to forty-three years after tho 
event, when he was a very aged man and his memory had failed. In one of 
these he states that he was the author, and in the others that he drew it. It is 
singular that Mr. Chaney has not furnished a single letter, document, fact, or 
incident, which I did not print in my paper of 1876. 

The writing of a document is not proof of authorship. Many men in the 
walks of literature, statesmanship, and business never write anything. They 
dictate their ideas to shorthand writers, amanuenses, and in our day to type- 
writers. In the committee of a legislative body each member makes sugges- 
tions, verbally or in writing, which may be his own, or may be furnished by 
some outside party. These points are discussed, some are accepted, and others 
rejected; and when an agreement is reached, the writing up of the hnal draft 
is turned over to the clerk, or some member of the committee. This was the 
work done by Mr. Dane in the Ordinance committee. He wrote it, but he was 
not in any sense its author. We do not know oven that it was an expression of 
his views at the time. If it was, and he had been its author, he would, in his 
letter to Mr. King, written three days later, have been more conscious of its 
merits and spoken of it in more affectionate and complimentary terms. He 
said: " With pleasure I communicate to you what we are doing in Congress, 
" not so much from the consciousness that what we do is well done, as from a 
'* desire that you may be acquainted with our proceedings. . . . We met several 
"tij^es, and at last agreed on some pnnciples — at least Lee, Smith, and myself, 
" we found ourselves rather pressed. . . . We finally found it necessary to 
" adopt the best system we could get." This is cool and apologetic commenda- 



— 6 — 

tion of what has been called " the wisest and most beneficient measure ever 
"adopted by the American Congress"; and of which he later, after the death 
of Dr. Cutler, and of every other member of the Ordinance committee, claimed 
to be the author. Dr. Cutler died in 1823, and the claim lirst appeared in 
Dane's " Abridgment and Digest of American Law," (Vol. VII., p. 389) in 1824. 
Mr. Chaney says: "For forty -three years after its enactment there was never 
" any question but that Nathan Dane did it." Will Mr. Chaney please give a 
reference to any authority, before 1 824, that Mr. Dane was the author of the 
Ordinance? Mr. Webster made his first speech on Foot's resolution, January 20, 
1830, in which he stated that Mr. Dane was its author. He doubtless based 
the statement on the assertion above mentioned; for the letter to Mr. King was 
not printed until February 28, 1855. The King letter shows that the final 
action of the committee was a compromise; that the result was not reached 
without some difiiculty, and was not altogether satisfactory to Mi". Dane — " We 
*' found ourselves rather pressed. The Ohio Company appeared to purchase a 
" large tract of Federal lands, . . . and we found it necessary to adopt the best 
"system we could get." It was, Mr. Dane says, "patched up." 

Mr. Chaney bases his whole argument on the fact that Mr. Dane wrote the 
final draft, and that fact is not by me disputed. He has, however, wholly 
ignored other facts in his possession, which show the improbability of his 
conclusion; and some of them I will state. 

Mr. Dane had no sympathy with the scheme of the Ohio Company of 
buying Federal land and forming a settlement in the V/est; and he was not in 
intimate personal relations with the promoters, although they were mainly Mass- 
achusetts men, and many were citizens of his own district. The scheme would 
drain Essex County of some of its most useful and enterprising men. General 
Rufus Putnam, writing to General Washington, said that he could not bring this 
matter to the notice of the Massachusetts delegates, as the State had lands of 
its own in the District of Maine for sale; "and I dare not,'' he adds, "trust 
"myself with any of the New York Relegates with whom I am acquainted, 
"because that government is inviiing the Eastern people to settle in that State." 
There is in Dr. Cutler's diaries and correspondence no evidence of his friend- 
ship for, 'or intimacy with, Mr. Dane. The}' were not fellow- townsmen, as Mr. 
Chaney says, for Mr. Dane resided in Beverly, and Dr. Cutler in Ipswich. 



The only letter of Dr. Cutler which appears in his correspondence is dated 
March IG, 1787, three months before Dr. Cutler started on his visit to New 
York. It was an attempt to interest Mr. Dane in a Western scheme of settle- 
ment; and its rudimentary information shows how little attention Mr. Dane had 
given to the subject. The postscript is as follows: "You are doubtlefls 
"acquainted with the institution of a Company in the New England States 
"by the name of the Ohio Company, for the purpose of making a large 
"settlement on the Federal lands on the river Ohio." When the Doctor 
was preparing to leave for New York, he procured more than forty letters of 
introduction to members of Congress from eminent citizens of Massachusetts, 
that he might not be dependent on Mr. Dane, the representative of his district, 
for making their acquaintance. His diary shows that his intercourse with Mr. 
Dane was perfunctory and infrequent. He often speaks of other Congressmen 
who rendered him service; but never of Mr. Dane in that relation. Mr. Chaney 
would imply that they were on terms of intimacy because Dr. Cutler dined on 
Sunday, July 8, at the British minister's house, " in company with Mr. Dane." 
Dr. Cutler explained the fact by saying: "Sir John [Temple] was so com- 
"plaisant as to invite Dr. Holton [another representative from Essex county, 
" Mass.], and Mr. Dane, which he said he did purposely on my account, as we 
"were countrymen." Dr. Cutler, while the land purchase was under consider- 
ation, expressed his opinion of Mr. Dane very explicitly when he wrote in his 
diary : " Holton, I think, can be trusted. Dane must be carefully watched, 
"notwithstanding his professions." 

An Ordinance for the organization of the Northwestern Territory was not a 
new question in Congress. It had been under discussion for more than three 
years. Many committees had it under consideration and many drafts were 
prepared. Mr. Dane came upon such a committee, and September 19, 1786, 
made a report; and April 26, 1787, another report, which was discussed, took 
its second reading, and was amended May 9. Its third reading was assigned 
for the following day. It was called up May 10, but no vote was taken. From 
May 12 to July 3, there was no quorum present and nothing was done. Here 
was the occasion for Mr. Dane to have shown his views of what a^ Ordinance 
for the Northwestern Territory should be; and there was no Dr. Cutler, and no 
Ohio Company seeking to buy some of this land, present to vex him or share 



— 8 — 

the honors of his work. The draft of his committee can be read in North 
American Review for April, 1876 (pp. 242-244). Except in the administrative 
portions, which were temporary, it had no resemblance to the real Ordinance 
which passed July 1 3. It had no prohibition of slavery, which then existed in all 
the States except Massachusetts; no provision for the equal distribution of estates 
among children of the whole or half blood; nothing on civil or religious liberty, 
the rights of conscience, and the obligation of contracts. It had no such clauses 
as these: ''No person shall be molested on account of his mode of worship or 
''religious worship;" " No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property, but 
"by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land; and should the public 
" exigencies render it necessary, for the common preservation, to take any 
"man's property, full compensation shall be made for the same;" "Religion, 
" morality and knowledge, being necessary to good governmenent and the hap- 
"piuess of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be 
"encouraged;" " The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the 
"Indians;" "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the 
" said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes of which the party 
"shall have been duly convicted." It had no articles of compact by which the 
most essential of these provisions were made irrepealable, and was wanting 
in all the features which made the Ordinance of July 13 one of the greatest 
monuments of civil jurisprudence. 

If previous to the arrival of Dr. Cutler in New York, July 5, Mr. Dane 
had any idea of what an Ordinance for the organization of the Northwestern 
Territory should be, the draft of his committee of April 26, which was 
assigned for third reading and enactment on May 10, expressed them. To 
consider what would be the condition of the Northwest and the country to day 
if that Ordinance had been enacted without an anti-slavery clause and the other 
beneficent features of the Ordinance of July 13, is not a pleasant subject for 
contemplation; and yet Mr. Dane, in his letter to Daniel Webster of March 26, 
1830, said: "In the years 1784-87, the Eastern members of the old Congress 
" really thought they were preparing the Northwestern Territory principally for 
" New England settlers." Alas, for the memory of an old man forty-three years 
after the event! He doubtless wrote with honest intent. In his letter to Mr. 
King he stated that " the Ohio Company appeared to purchase a large tract of 



-9- 

"Federal lands, about six or seven million acres;'' but when he wrote to Mr. 
Webster he forgot all about Dr. Cutler, the Ohio Company, and the millions of 
acres of Federal lands, — the pivot on which the whole matter of the Ordinance 
turned. How can Mr. Dane's position in 1787 be explained? I will allow his 
home friends to explain it, who were more familiar with his record and the facts 
than is Mr. Chaney. Several papers which support Mr. Dane's claim to be the 
author of the Ordinance were contributed auonymously to tlic His^torical Colli c- 
tions of the Essex Institute, at Salem, in 1888, and were collected in a 
pamphlet of seventy-two pages, in 1889, with the title, "The Part taken by 
" Essex County in the Organization and Settlement of the North v.est Territory." 
It is mainly a compilation, and the notes were prepared by a partisan of Mr. 
Dane, who says: 

'•The Ordinance exists in his hand-writing on the files of Congres> [which is an 
error], and was reported by him to Congress, for the npparent reason that the chair- 
man of the committee was not in sympathy with the measure.* Cutler seems to 
have distrusted him. His integrity needs no vindication. Mr. Dane h;id already 
made K.rge investnien's in the Eastern land enterprise, and w:is interested in, and 
committed to the building up of the Province of Maine. Some of his relatives had 
gone there and domiciled themsf Ives, and several leading offlcf-rs of the Revolution- 
ary Army, such as Generals Knox and Lincoln, had acquired land there. Massa- 
chusetts sentiment was enlisted, and could not brook the desertion of the Eastern 
enterprise for any other. ' If, under these circumstances, the cautious mind of the 
acute and ssigacious jurist may have wavered at times, under the impression that he 
might be jeopardizing his interests in Maine, in behalf ot a distant and (loul)iful 
Western venture, posterity will perhaps be able to speak of his vuriHaiion a little 
more charitably than Dr Cutler could " (p. 41, 42). 

I do not sec this quotation, which explains Mr. Dane's personal rehitions 
to the schemes of Eastern and Western settlements, and of Dr. Cutler's distrust 
of him, in Mr. Chaney's paper, nor in his eulogy of Mr. Dane in "The Green 

•The chairman was (^olmiel Fdward Carriiigton of Virginia, and the Journal of ConRress of 
July II states that, "The comniitlee, POnslsti;:g of Mr CarriuKti>n, Mr. I'ane, Mr. K. H. Lee, Mr. 
Kean and .Mr. Smith, . . . reporttnl an Ordniance," etc. Dr. Cutler took letters to Mr. {?arrini:ton, 
and hi! was the first Congressman the Doctor met and receivi-d attentions from They later became 
warm friends. Oarrinnfon was not opposed to the Ordinance. He both reportfd and voted for it. ffe 
was doubticss made clialrman of llie Ordinance Committee throuKh the influence of l)r. f'ntler. In the 
land t)urchase he was one of tlie Doctor's* warmest supporti-rs and lobliyists. Dr. Cntler says iu bis 
diary: *' Grayson, it. H. Lee and Carriugton are certainly my warm advocates." 



— 10 ~ 

Bag" for December, 1891. There was no quorum of Congress preseut, and 
hence no business was transacted from May 12 to July 4, when Wm. Grayson, 
of Virginia, in the absence of Gen. St. Clair, was elected temporary chairman. 
There was no quorum present July 5. Dr. Cutler arrived on the evening of that 
day. There was, therefore, nothing then concerning an Ordinance before Con- 
gress, except the bald, rudimentary draft of April 26, made by Mr. Dane's 
committee which had fortunately not been enacted May 10. If we accept Mr. 
Chaney's theory, a great light now burst upon Mr. Dane's mind. The presence 
of Dr. Cutler might account for this sudden illumination; but the hypothesis 
would be giving too much credit to Dr. Cutler, and leave Mr. Dane with no 
claim to originality. Is there any evidence that his mind was illuminated? 
We know that he had made personal and large investments in lands in Maine, 
and partook of " the Massachusetts sentiment which could not brook the deser- 
" tion of the Eastern enterprise for any other;" but what is the evidence that 
he had suddenly transferred his interest to Western-land schemes? He said, 
indeed, in his letter to Mr. Webster, that "the Eastern members of the old 
" Congress really thought they were preparing the Northwestern Territory |)rin- 
" cipally for ISTew England settlers;" but the statement was made when he was 
too old to recall the facts correctly. Mr. Jefferson began to write his Memoirs 
at about the same age, and fell into many errors. He claimed the authorship 
of papers of which he was not the author, as of John Dickinson's draft of the 
"Declaration of the Causes of taking up Arms," 1775. Memory, imagina- 
tion, and similar incidents which occurretl at different times, were mixed up in 
his mind. Correcting Governor McKeau for an error he had made concerning 
the Declaration of Independence, he said that the Governor, " trusting to his 
" memory at a time when our memories are not to be trusted, has confounded 
" two questions, and ascribed proceedings to one, which belonged to the other.'' 
Whatever effect, if any, the arrival of Dr. Cutler may have had upon Mr. 
Dane's mind, a great and sudden light illumined Congress during the next eight 
dsys, and culminated in the enactment, by a unanimous vote of Congress, of 
the immortal Ordinance of 1787. This is an undisputed fact; its suddenness 
arrests attention and demands explanation. Will the presence of Mr. Dane, 
who had been in Congress for tv.'o years, and whose mind, as we have seen, had 
run slowly and ploddingly in other channels, explain it? The presence of Dr. 



-11 — 

Cutler was a new element of influence; and can Mr. Chaney suggest the name 
of any other person, on any other influence that could have aroused such an 
interest in Westei-n settlement, and in the framing of an Ordinance best adapted 
to that end ? Was Dr. Cutler a man of sufficient ability, reputation and organ- 
izing power to inspire !?uch interest, and secure the passage of the Ordinance ? 
Professor Andrew P. Peabody, D. D., of Harvard University, says of him. 
" For diversity of good gifts, for their efficient use, and for the variety of modes 
"of valuable service to his country and mankind, I doubt wliether Manasseh 
"Cutler has his equal in American history. Had he distinguished himself in 
"any one way as he did in many ways, his would have been confessedly among 
"the greatest names of his age." {Neiv Englander, April, 1887, p. 319). 
This estimate of Dr. Cutler is not overdrawn. His diary shows the methods by 
which he conducted tl)e campaign which were as scientific and skillful as laying 
seige to a city. Getting a satisfactory code of laws for the territory and buying 
the land were parts of the same transaction, and both were secured from Con- 
gress within ten days of each other. He made the personal acquaintance not 
only of the members of Congress, and especially the Southern members, but of 
the Board of the Treasury — it being largely a fluaucial proposal to relieve the 
distressing necessities of the government. He quickly became master of the 
position, and was taken into conference with the committees having both sub- 
jects in charge. He arrived in New York on Thursday evening, July 5. On 
Friday he began his work of making the acquaintance of Congressmen and 
officers of the government, and continued it on Saturday. Sunday he attended 
church three times and dined with Sir John Temple, the British minister. 
Monday, the 9th, he attended "the committee before Congress opened."* What 
was said and done at that meeting he did nut mention, it then being regarded as 
a breach of good faith to report what was done in Congress or in committees. 
At the session of Congress on that day — the sessions began at 11 o'clock — 
a new committee to prepare an Ordinance ^vas appointed, consisting of Edward 

• Tht' committee here meiitionecl was one on the laiul piinhasc. appointed May 9. on the petition of 
General Parsons, con>istiii(r of Mr. (,'arrington. Mr. Madisun, Mi. Kintr. Mr. Dane ami Mr I>rn>on. 
Mr. MadisDn and Mr. Klnj? were both absent at the Constiinlional Convention, at PhUailelphia, and 
Mr. BeiL'-on was not present at any 8e>sion of t onyress that year alter May 10. Mr. (.'arrinjiton and 
Mr. Dane were, therefore, the only ineMibers present; and but h were later nieuibers of the Ordiuaiue 
Committee. 



— 12 — 

■Carringtoii of Virginia, Nathan Dane, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, John 
Kean of North Carolina, and Melancton Smith of New York, a majority being 
•Southern members. After Congress adjourned, on Monday, Dr. Cutler again 
"attended the Committee at Congress chamber"; and on Tuesday morning, July 
10, he records: "This morning another conference with the Committee," making 
three conferences witli the committees in about twenty-four hours. Tuesday 
afternoon he dined with Colonel Wm. Duer, Clerk of the Treasury Board, with the 
draft of the genuine Ordinance in his pocket, which had been " sent to me," he 
says, "with leave to make remarks and propose amendments, and which 1 had 
"taken the liberty to remark upon, and to propose several amendments." 
After he had returned the draft with his observations, he set out, at 7 
o'clock, for Philadelijhia. On Wednesday, July 11, Mr. Carrington, for the 
Committee, reported the Ordinance, and it took its first reading; on the 12th its 
second reading, and was amended; and on Friday, the 13th, it was read the 
third time, and passed unanimously by the eight States then present, three of 
them only being Northern States. It appears, therefore, that within about 
twenty-four hours after the Ordinance Committee was appointed, the draft was 
-so far completed that it was submitted to Dr. Cutler for his remarks and amend- 
ments; and within forty-eight hours it was reported to Congress. Dr. Cutler 
in the meantime had three conferences with the committee. He could have 
told us in his diary what occurred at those conferences, and he did not; nor has 
any explanation of that rapid action come to light from any other source. The 
involved and complicated plan of its construction, as set forth in Mr. Dane's 
letters to Mr. Webster, Mr. Farnum, and in Appendix A, Vol, IX, of his Abridg- 
ment, is wholly improbable. Dr. Cutler, certainly, did not draft it while he 
was in New York; for his diary shows that his time was otherwise fully occu- 
pied. He had an interview with General Rufus Putnam, in Boston, just before 
he left for New York, and another with General Parsons a few days later at Mid- 
•dletown. Conn, He might have brought the outline of a draft of his own which 
he submitted to them, or one of theirs. They were associate directors of the 
Ohio Company, the persons most interested in the terms of the Ordinance, and 
each an abler man than Mr, Dane. No evidence, however, has come to my 
knowledge to sustain this supposition. The riddle may yet be explained. The 
most reasonable solution which occurs to me is that Dr, Cutler brought with him 



— 13 — 

the outline of an Ordinance which would be satisfactory to the Ohio Company^ 
then proposing to buy the Western lands and take there a large body of New 
England settlers; and that the opportunity of opening up this Federal land for 
/I'ale and settlement was the ruling motive in Congress in voting for the Ordi- 
nance and the land sale. It was a patriotic movement based on business prin- 
ciples, and it was fortunate for the country that wise and prudent men had 
charge of the business instead of humanitarian cranks. Mr. Chancy argues 
that Dr, Cutler had no interest in excluding slavery from the territory, because 
in his "garrulous and interesting diary there is not a word on the subject of 
"slavery, nor a stipulation concerning it in the written proposals for the pur- 
"pose; nor in lobbying with Congressmen was the question ever refen*ed to." 
It would have been the sublimity of imprudence, in a business point of view^ 
for Dr. Cutler and others to have alluded to the question of slavery. They 
were dealing with Southeru men, and kuew how to handle them and avoid antag- 
onizing their local prejudices. Massachusetts had abolished slavery four years 
before, not by statute, but by a decision of its Supreme Court; and Congressmen 
knew that her citizens would not engage in any scheme of colonization unless in 
free territory. Is it possible to conceive that Dr. Cutler would have left New 
York for Philadelphia on the evening of Tuesday, July 10, unless he had seen 
in the draft of the Ordinance then submitted to him the sixth article of compact 
forever prohibiting shivery in the Northwesern territory? And yet it was 
omitted in the copy submitted to Congress the next day; and ]\Ir. Dane says he 
"omitted it in the draft," that is, he did not write it in the committee's report, 
and assigns as a reason for omitting it, that " I had no idea the states would 
"agree to the sixth article prohibiting slavery, as only Massachusetts of the 
"Eastern States was present." Dr. Cutler, wh.o had canvassed the whole 
ground could have given him better information. It was bad faith, ignorance, 
or stupidity in Mr. Dane, that he left it out. On the next day, the 12tli, 
" finding" he says, " the House favorably disposed on the subject, I moved the 
"article, which was agreed to without opposition." What would the Ordinance 
have been without the sixth article, which obviously had been agreed upon by 
the committee? The incident shows, if nothing worse, how little attention he 
had given to the subject, and to the sentiments of Congressmen concerning it. 
It was restored to the Ordinance, of course, in his own handwriting; and because 



- - 14 — 

he restored it, he claimed in his Abridgement, and in his letter to Mr. Webster, 
the whole credit of keeping slavery out of the Northwestern territory ! Tliis 
statement has often been repeated by others; and the article in the liandwriting 
of Mr. Dane, now in the Library of Congress, is appealed to as proof that he 
was the great benefactor of the Northwest and of his country. 

I promised to give some data which may screen President Josepli F. Tuttle 
from the discredit of originating wliat Mr. Chauey calls tiie " Poole theory " of 
of the origin of the Ordinance. On the evening of September 1 1 , 1872, 1 was at 
the house of Hon. William P. Cutler, at Marietta, Ohio, who was the grandson 
of Dr. Manasseh Cutler. The conversation turned upon historical matters and 
a large mass of manuscripts was brought out for my inspection. One of these 
was a copy of Dr. Cutler's Diary, which he kept during his visit to New York 
and Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. I had never seen the manuscript 
before, but had heard of it and read the extracts from it printed in Spark's 
"Life of Dr. Franklin," and in Caleb Emerson's article on "Ohio," in the 
North American Review for October, 1841. As I turned over the leaves I 
remarked that this Diary would evidently throw light on the origin of the Ordi- 
nance of 1787, and if I could be allowed to take it with me to Cincinnati, I 
would examine it and report wliat I found. My proposal was readily acceded 
to; and taking it with me, I made a careful examination of it as soon as I had 
leisure. I found what I expected, and &o reported to the family, who gave me 
the privilege of retaining it for further study. I prepared a paper on the sub- 
ject which I read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, December 21, 1872, 
which was printed entire in the Cincinnati Commercial, December 23, 1872, 
the Boston Transcript, January 13, 1873, and the New England Historical and 
Genealogical Register for April, 1873, and abstracts of it appeared in many 
newspapers. President Tuttle, it appears, had also a copy of Dr. Cutler's Diary 
which, I M'os told, he made when a student at Marietta College, from a copy in 
its library. His attention was called anew to the subject by my paper, and he 
prepared a series of articles for Dawson's Historical Magazine, with the title, 
" The Western States of the Great Valley," which was made up largely by 
extracts from Dr. Cutler's Diary. The first of the articles appeared in June, 
1873, and they were continued monthly till September. In the last paper he 
discussed Dr. Cutler's relations to the Ordinance, and claimed that Cutler was 



- 15 - 

entitled to an equal share of tlie honor with Dane. " We now begin," he said, 
" to appreciate the importance of the act, and would emblazon on the great act 
" itself the two names of Natlian Dane and Maiuisseh Cutler." I am not aware 
that he has written anything on the subject since. After my paper of Decem- 
ber, 1872, was printed, I began the collection of materials for a more elaborate 
discussion of the subject. The documents I needed, especially those favoring 
the claims of Mr. Dane, were not easy to find; but they came to me gradually, 
and having arranged my materials, I read, in December, 1875, before the 
Chicago Literary Club, the paper which was printed in the North American 
Review for April, 1876. 



JUL 1 t9tJ7 



